


pawn and knight (watch your words)

by ShadowSpellchecker



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: Age difference (discussed), Consent Issues (discussed), Deconstruction, F/M, Gen, M/M, Other, Period-Typical Homophobia (discussed), Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:08:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29052657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowSpellchecker/pseuds/ShadowSpellchecker
Summary: He is eight when the mark appears. He doesn't notice. His opponent does.Or: First-words soulmark AU. Benny is up for an Epic Chess Rivalry. Beth just wants to win it all.
Relationships: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts
Comments: 76
Kudos: 239





	1. Chapter 1

8 (0)

He is eight when the mark appears. He doesn't notice. His opponent does. "Congratulations", Mr. Najdorf says, and points to the currently illegible blur on his right wrist.  
But Benny is eight, and there is chess to be played, and this is _the_ greatest game of his life so far. He moves.

It is a promise.  
It is a warning.  
Some call it a suggestion.  
Others, a dream.

12 (4)

He is twelve, and the mark is coalescing into lines. His sister teases him, telling him to "make sure to wait until she is legal". His parents scold her, but in more cautious terms, they agree. But he is not a little kid anymore. He knows about this stuff. He tells them he is not going to do anything stupid.  
It is an easy promise, because Benny is twelve, and all that matters to him is the next game.

She does not remember a time without the rough scrawl spanning her wrist. No one is around to remark on it, and her mother ignores it. Beth is young, and it is beneath her notice.

Physiologically, "soulmarks" are discrete accretions of melanin under the skin. In practice, a soulmark forms an image or symbol that appears at the birth of the counterpart upon the wrist of the bearer. A symbol that indicates, upon meeting, that this person has the most potential for lasting companionship.

13 (5)

He is thirteen when the mark suddenly changes from smokey blur to actual letters.  
_I'd take the knight_  
They are rough, and disjointed in the way of young hands. But the words are clear enough, and he knows what they are referring to. They interest him. Because they are not the words of a potential spouse, but a colleague or competitor. He has heard about such matches before.  
He is relieved because it promises a lifetime of competition and going for the top. It means not settling down, not settling for the ordinary, of excitement. It means more _chess_.  
But Benny is thirteen, and a chess prodigy, and he has games to play. He spares a thought to this upstart kid who he cannot wait to crush, and moves on.

She is five, and is learning her letters. She sees the similarity between the scribbles on her arm and the characters in her books. She asks her mother what they mean.  
'That just means there is someone out there who will try to control you', Alice dismisses.  
But Beth is five, and has been isolated her whole life. She does not understand.

Soul marks naturally change over time. They come in near-transparent, change with the language and counterpart, and set into final form upon initial interaction. Naturally, they draw notice in a way most scars or tattoos never will.

15 (6)

He is fifteen, and feels like he is actually learning something from people his own age. Levertov frequently attends the same tournaments he does, and where he goes, so too goes Wexler. They are soulmates, though they deny their connection when it comes up in conversation. Understandable, really, given the flak same-sex matches get. Not that he assumes they are _that_ type of match, he assures them, but theirs is the first chess-related bond he has seen besides his own and he is curious. They certainly aren't rivals. How does it work?  
Different niches, they explain. Wexler favors theory, Levertov the application thereof. To prove their point, they offer to play him. They play several games against him simultaneous, and he beats them handily—but then they tag-team him, and though he still wins, it is the closest game he has had in months.  
He relishes the challenge. "This wouldn't be allowed in competitive," he points out afterward. Wexler shrugs. "Makes you think, though." It really does.  
He is fifteen, and he thinks he has found friends. 

She is six, and watching her mother burn something in the barrel outside the trailer. "Did Daddy try to tell you what to do?" she asks.  
Alice waves her arm. "These marks make them think they can. But you know what? _It's just skin_."  
Beth is six years old, and wonders if there is more to it.

In illiterate societies, a soulmark might form a picture - the representation of that person or their name, in their own hand. This, historians and anthropologists argue, held across the centuries. An ancient body found frozen in an Alpine glacier had a stylized fox on his wrist. The natives of Polynesian societies would have their counterpart's tattoos delineated in exceptional accuracy. In East Asia, it was even believed that soulmarks became the basis of their pictorial scripts.

16 (7)

He is sixteen when he revisits his mark. (He could never resist a puzzle.) In between reviewing Luchenko and Capablanca, drilling through Morphy, he idly keeps an eye out for upcoming American prodigies in recent publications. He (because it would be male, given the statistics) surely would be coming to national attention soon. He had by this age, and he cannot fathom his match would not be of the same caliber.  
Yet the upstart does not appear on the scene.  
But Benny is sixteen, and there is still chess to be played, and other people to meet, and so he doesn't dwell.

 _it's all pawns and no hope_  
She is seven, and she can read her mark all the way through now. She doesn't know if she likes it very much. It seems depressing, by any definition.  
Beth is seven years old, and she puts the dictionary down.

And at least since Plutarch wrote of Xerxes I's mark, _μολὼν λαβέ_ [1], another form of soulmark is known: a string of words spoken by the counterpart to the bearer during their meeting - pleasantries and rote conversation aside. (Could you imagine such a world where basic greetings are registered on the marks? The confusion!) In Anglophone countries, where the meaning behind a person's name is often lost, this form of mark is statistically the most common.

17 (8)

He is seventeen when he starts experiencing feedback from the mark. It is the third day of the 1957 National Championships, and he has his opponent pinned in eight moves. Then his entire forearm _burns_ , then goes _numbcoldpinsandneedleswhatthehell_. He can hardly think. He is about to call an adjournment, probably should, but… _eight moves_.  
Benny is seventeen, and impatient. He grits his teeth and finishes the game left-handed, taking twice as long because his coordination is thrown off.

The date is July 24, 1957. Beth is eight years old, and her world has just ended.

1[ _Molon labe_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molon_labe), Classical Greek for "come take [our weapons]". [return to text]


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She is nine when she first learns of the significance other people put to the scribbles on her arm.
> 
> Or: Life doesn't start with meeting your soulmate. Ten moments for five years.

9 (18)

She is nine when she first learns of the significance other people put to the scribbles on her arm. Mrs. Deardorff says they are a gift from God, but the staff tell the Methuen girls who have them not to get their hopes up. The girls don't care. She hears them giggling to one another at night, trying to decipher who their prince may be from the words they can read. She just looks up at the ceiling, and runs through pawn structures.  
Beth is nine, and she is learning chess, and the words are irrelevant to the game.

He is eighteen when he experiences the feedback again. Now, he understands the significance, and worries about this kid who must have the worst luck in the world to have two near-death experiences in as many years. (He also wonders if feeling will return to his arm properly. The sporadic jolts of pins and needles sensation is getting annoying and disrupting his sleep.)  
But he is eighteen, and on a plane over the Atlantic, and there is nothing that he can do about it. Benny shuts his eyes and pictures the board.

The remote sensory response between marks reflects certain immediate experiences in the counterpart. Psychosomatic pain may reflect from acute pain, an abrupt change of health or safety, or intense psychological trauma, while mild hypoesthesia (numbing) or "pins and needles" in the area may reflect lost or altered state of consciousness. A complete loss of sensation in the skin beneath the mark and surrounding dermal layers, however, only coincides with the death of the match. Reports of an intermittent "pins and needles" sensation is not unusual after experiencing first feedback, but can be a bad sign.

10 (18)

She is ten years old, and she is not allowed to play chess. Mr. Shaibel is not even allowed to talk to her. Without chess, she looks for a distraction. She discovers she had one the whole time.  
Her own is a bitter reminder, but Jolene shows her her mark one night, and they spend hours wondering what gerrymandering is. (It is a funny word, winding and lizard-like. She finds it in the dictionary; it is neither.) Jolene may scoff at the words with the certainty of the jaded, but the only home she has will throw her out in a few years, and her words give her direction. Jolene gains a new spring in her step.  
Beth is ten, and she cannot play chess for now, but the words say otherwise and she thinks there is hope.

He is eighteen, and legally an adult. He is a rising star in the game that consumes his life, and the world seems wide open. What do you _expect_ a young man in his position to do?  
Take risks. Raise the stakes. _Experiment_.  
(Move out. Build a persona. Write papers. Raise funding. Scout seconds. Play more chess. He is no longer a child prodigy, hasn't been for years, but he is feeling the difference now.)  
Benny is eighteen years old, and his career lies before him. But his mark reminds him his equal is out there; he can't waste his time in the sun.

Attempting to predict soulmark matches seems to be a cultural universal. From folk magic mirror games to statistical analysis, many young humans will attempt to souse out who that person might be. In Anglophone countries, where marks tend to contain seemingly random phrases, handwriting analysis tends to be a popular method to assess personality. Not that handwriting analysis is in fact a good predictor; there are often too many variables to give more than a rough segment of possibilities. Age, social status, even injury can twist the shape of the mark.  
But the words stay the same. Funny how that works.

11 (19)

She is eleven when she feels her mark ache. It starts during chapel, and worsens over the next two days. It becomes a second heartbeat that keeps her awake at night and makes her wish for the green pills.  
Knowing the price of ten demerits, she doesn't want to bring attention to herself, but on Tuesday after breakfast Jolene drags her to Mr. Fergussen. He checks for fever. He checks for a break. "Nothing's wrong with you," he decides. "Now your match, _they_ be in trouble."  
He can't give her painkillers after her "episode", but he looks sorry. She thinks he spreads the word around, because none of the teachers call on her that day, and Miss Graham even lends her a bag of ice before class. It is cool on her mark, and no one seems to mind when she dozes off at her desk.  
On Wednesday, the teachers just excuse her from classes. Mrs. Deardorff locks her in the dormitory after breakfast. It is a perfect opportunity for chess, but she is too distracted to even rest. She just sits there, watching her mark burn invisible, until her arm suddenly goes numb— not comfortable, but better. She lays on her cot and basks in the respite, until Jolene checks on her at lunch. "Poor bastard must've passed out," she comments, impressed. Beth doesn't understand why. Another hour passes before she can feel past her elbow, another day before the phantom aches subside, and it is all terribly inconvenient.  
But then one of the girls points to her arm at dinner Thursday, asking "Looks like he'll live then?", and it occurs to her that there is a living person who would speak her words, and that they almost didn't. It is a strange thought.  
Yet Beth is eleven, and an orphan: she is all too familiar with people leaving and dying and not showing up. She is not happy about the near-miss, but she is not afraid either. How can you lose someone you never met?

He is nineteen when his invitation to the Moscow Invitational is rescinded. It rankles him more than he would like to admit. The Moscow Invitational was probably the best opportunity an American could get to study the greatest players in the world on their home turf, to play them when their guards are down. And it was taken from him by factors entirely out of his control.  
Because the year he can finally afford to go, a spy plane gets shot down over Russia during _peace talks_. Then the _idiot_ who sent it then admits it, refuses to apologize, and _promises to do it again_. The idea of an American being personally invited to Moscow in the middle of this is beyond laughable. It would even be funny, if he hadn't wanted to go so badly he could cry.  
Benny is nineteen years old, an American grandmaster. But he now has the visceral impression of being a pawn, hemmed in by more pawns, on a board far bigger than sixty-four squares. He wants to advance, but he knows that for the moment, all he can do is hold position and look for the right play.  
(He doesn't want to play politics. He just wants to play _chess_.)

The experience of a soulmate in danger can be traumatic for the bearer, but this psychosomatic response can at least tell if their counterpart is alive. Even children too young to remember other things tend to recall such instances. Militaries often use this feature to determine the survival of prisoners of war and missing units by registering soulmates and ensuring one can be contacted when the match's unit is deployed. Persons in other dangerous professions sometimes practice exercises to compartmentalize their state in hopes of protecting their matches, but they seldom stand up to prolonged use. No matter the situation, known matches to high-risk individuals are often restricted from operating heavy equipment or performing delicate tasks when their counterparts are working.  
Outside of military use, some have found the reaction to be the most effective, and often only way, to discern the safety of soulmates and family separated by conflict. While not pleasant, in my experience the death of a mark, known or unknown, may be the only closure many will ever receive.

12 (21)

She is twelve years old, and is learning (to hate) calligraphy. Her mother never taught her, never put stock in it, but at Methuen they put great emphasis on the art of handwriting. It is important, some teachers claim. It is like a signature, others explain. "Better to leave something pretty on your soulmate's arm," Miss Lonsdale says.  
But the boys don't have to learn it, she discovers. Beth may be twelve, but she is struck by the unfairness of it.

He is twenty-one, and Moscow is still out of reach. He keeps busy, blitzing through the U.S. Circuit and entering every international tournament rumored to have a Soviet presence he can. He takes advantage of his location in Manhattan to supplement his income. He develops his persona, turning his hat and coat into a second skin that means _Benny Watts_. At the suggestion of his editor, he drafts a book. He plays speed chess, does problems with Wexler, reviews games with Levertov, plays them both, and studies constantly.  
His friends debate whether he is compensating for not being able to play in Moscow, or preparing for the Interzonal. His family just thinks that he is stretching himself thin. None of them get it.  
Benny is twenty-one, and learning to play chess off the board.

While normally understood that soulmarks do not abide national lines, in times of political and social turmoil transcultural marks may easily become evidence of political allegiance. This is especially true when the marks feature languages or symbols associated with particular political or social groups. For instance, in Reich-occupied Europe, removal of Semitic-language markers became common practice, despite the risks inherent in the surgery.

13 (22)

She is a month past thirteen when there is disturbance outside the orphanage. She looks out the window, and spies a girl who three hours earlier had been adopted. She is crying. While puzzling, she does not think anything of it until Jolene tells her later. "Girl found her soulmate… He was their nephew." Even the newest girls agree that never being considered would be preferable to being sent home after _that_.  
Mrs Deardorff insists it was their moral duty to take her back to Methuen Home. Even Fergussen agrees that it would be inappropriate (and illegal, which the lifers believe more readily) to place the girl with her soulmate's family.  
But Beth is thirteen, and she hears things from the others. She thinks that if the soulmate had been female, they would not have thought to bother. This, too, strikes her as unfair.

He is twenty-two, and has made a new acquaintance. She calls herself Cleo, and her soulmark is as disturbing as she is beautiful. It rests on her arm, far too still for its tentative brushwork, for its pale patches of pigment— far too innocent for its hypoxic shade of grey.  
He has seen enough dead marks (his mother's, old and not his father's hand; various opponents', in languages he never learned) to know the story behind this one is not pretty. He does not ask. But Wexler is there, and he does. She explains that her Axis-language mark saved her family during the occupation, burning out a mere month before peace was declared. She does not elaborate further, but they can do the math. They grow quiet then.  
He thinks of his own mark. He realizes that twice he could have been like Cleo— bearing the script of a dead, unmet match. And that his own stubbornness in Buenos Aires had almost condemned the kid to the same.  
But Benny is twenty-two, and still young. He doesn't want to think about it. When Cleo invites him to spend the night, he accepts.

Models are often vulnerable to fraudulent responses, as they are often required to have their arms bared. Makeup is of course preferred, but is not always an option. Models that have lost their soulmate often have to cover their marks or have them tattooed over. Customers do not like being reminded of their own mortality.

14 (23)

She is fourteen, fifteen in November, and she is leaving Methuen. The news is so sudden, she barely has time to pack and say goodbye to Jolene before she leaves. She is not able to say goodbye to Mr. Shaibel, but she sees him on the doorstep from the car.  
Her new 'parents' are upfront with her about not being soulmates, but they seem content. They remind her of something her mother said once, and she wonders briefly what their 'more' would have been.  
Beth is fourteen years old, and it has been five years since she last played another human being.

He is twenty-three, and scouting for seconds again. Vasily Borgov is the new World Champion, and there is talk of reopening the American seat at Moscow. Things are moving again, but the pieces are not quite there.  
He gets a call back from an old contact (opponent, acquaintance, all the same) in Ohio. They agree to meet up at a tournament in Cincinnati to scout the new meat. There is talk about an upset at the Kentucky State Championship, but he doesn't hope for much.  
Benny is twenty-three, and it has been five years since he last felt his mark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little rough, but at least on schedule. I tried to slowly transition to longer segments and dialogue, but most of it is in Benny's POV and since I want to keep a balance between the perspectives, much of it got cut down. Probably will end up posting outtakes somewhere.  
> On the Moscow Invitational: did some research into Americans playing in Moscow during the period. Leningrad? Sure. Moscow? NOPE.  
> Even the RW World Championship Challenger matches were kept outside the USSR, and the World Championships themselves are between Soviets, so Moscow was a no-brainer. Which gives me some idea where the Invitational might come from, but no evidence for whether an American would be allowed to enter, by either side. But? During the Francis Powers debacle? The Cuban Missile Crisis? No, I don't think Benny would have been allowed in, even though he would still have been young (reckless) enough to risk it.
> 
> On the other hand, Benny would have faced four Russians anyway, at the 1962 Interzonal... That was all the Soviets were allowed, apparently. Their lineup would be somewhat different, since Luchenko would have been champion so Botvinnik would be runner-up. By the way, in the book they are the same age, but Botvinnik is mentioned so it isn't a simple replacement. My bet? That "played to a draw with Botvinnik" line is an inside joke.  
> I did the math, and Cleo was probably born under Nazi occupation. Yikes!  
> ...In other news, apparently I really cannot avoid reading into the effects of the World Wars on everything I read.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Words have power, you know. Nations have risen and fallen on the words of visionaries and poets. A well-placed phrase may condemn one to ignominy, or propel a hero into perpetual renown.  
> What is said cannot be unsaid. Watch your words.
> 
> * * *
> 
> November 1963.

September, 1963.  
He is twenty-three when Cleo voices a strange thought. She is visiting him in his apartment while he prepares for the upcoming Open when she notes that his mark's handwriting has grown more regular. It is so incongruous that he looks. He sees the mark every day, though, so he cannot see the difference. "I'll take your word for it," he decides.  
"Mm… perhaps she is taking lessons." He thinks she is wrong in her assumption, and tells her as much.  
Cleo looks astounded. "You did not realize? That is not a man's hand."  
He scoffs. "Can't be. The math isn't there."  
Cleo just gives him a look, and proposes a wager. Naturally, he accepts.  
Benny is twenty-three, and confident in his judgment. But he does not have time to think about it further; the Open is in a week.

November 2, 1963  
She turns fifteen in the wake of her first tournament victory and her second paternal abandonment. At Methuen her birthday would have passed unremarked, and she probably would not have realized it was something worth celebrating if Jolene hadn't told her in her second year. But now, Alma bakes her a cake, and she thinks that she might keep her word about being a mother.  
It is nice to be _wanted_ , she realizes.  
She is fifteen, and it is almost too late, but Beth will always be an orphan and knows to take what she can get, Alice's advice or not.

"First-words" soulmarks seldom actually reflect the exact first words of a meeting. Sentences containing names, of course, are omitted in Anglophone marks. Linguists theorize that this is due to etymological ambiguities that prevent the manifestation of symbolic marks. Some psychologists differ; one common psychological theory is that it skews the focus of the interaction enough that the sentence does not register. Both theories have their strengths and weaknesses. But then, rote conversation - socially expected greetings and questions, for instance - and interjections almost never appear. In the event they appear as a mark, it is usually due to a context where the question or greeting is truly meant.

23 (15)

He is twenty-three, and leaving New York early. It is just as well; he has felt pins and needles around his mark on three occasions since September, two of which were in daylight. He wonders what has changed in his match's life for it to start up again, but he cannot dwell for long. The phenomenon may be worrying, but it is also inconvenient. He revises his route to Cincinnati from the I-76 to the I-90. The change adds two hours to an already ten-hour drive, but he doesn't want to be stuck in the Appalachians overnight because he can't manage left turns.  
He leaves on Thursday, and arrives at dawn on Friday. His mark was quiet the whole time.

She is fifteen, and hasn't given a thought to soulmarks since Allston left. Since before, really—not since the glance at Townes' beautiful wrist during their game, despite knowing the gesture futile. Yet, she hears the words of her mark spoken aloud as she climbs the stairs to her first match at the Gibson Hotel. They are _not_ directed at her, and she cannot help but take notice. (There is no risk, she thinks; it is hardly the kind of phrase one repeats.) She sees a man sitting there with a chessboard and a knife, and a crowd (all men, of course, why should here be any different?) hanging onto his every word. But she sees the weakness in his lineup, in his claim. Words, men, the world, the board: she wants to prove them all wrong. And she knows he is wrong, and that gives her the daring to speak. She draws up her courage and opens her mouth, and declares…

"I'd take the knight."

Science has yet to explain _why_ the marks occur, let alone why it might appear on another part of the body if the primary limb was damaged before it could appear. Of course, the simultaneous psychosomatic response to a counterpart's extreme distress or injury has been subject to scientific scrutiny for decades, but the results have thus far been universally unsatisfactory. What we _do_ know, according to statistics, that the marks _work_...  
...Not as traditional matchmakers, not after centuries of political alliances and class divisions dictating marital candidacy in Indo-European societies. Not even as indicators of friendship (the numerous candidates for Attila the Hun's Roman soulmate being a perpetual argument against _that_ theory). But as signs that, given _any_ chance, personalities matched are the most likely to maintain some sort of lifelong association. And that, where romantic or sexual relationships are allowed and able to develop, they statistically are less likely to end in divorce or marital violence. Thus, for some adults at least, soulmarks are considered a good indicator of compatibility.

23 (15)

He is twenty-three, and finally in Cincinnati. Weiss is late (or he is early), so he has time to give an impromptu lecture on black openings to the team from New York. He has pulled out his board to illustrate a point to their second board, a former opponent he had crushed in a simultaneous two years ago, when the _words_ come from behind.  
He looks around, and is thrown. The kid on the stairs is a _girl_. He knows who it is; only one player on the national circuit even matches that description. Yet somehow, in the month since she stole the Kentucky crown, he had failed to even consider thispossibility. (Cleo had examined his mark one day and told him in no uncertain terms that it was female and he had not believed her then. He regrets it now.) The potential problems now tick through his mind like seconds on the clock.  
Such as that his mark is common knowledge, and the kid just outed herself by declaring the words to the room. Or that she is too old for people to assume a siblingship, and he too young for a mentorship. And that the bland majority would hardly expect a rivalry from a male-female match. And from there, how it would come up with FIDE and with the sponsors most likely to get him to Russia if the negotiations work out. How the accusations of favoritism (and worse) would dog the kid for the rest of her career. That may dog _his_ career. (He remembers his sister's teasing, and his parents' quiet warnings. And that is from people who actually cared.) He _really_ doesn't want to be labeled as the next W.R. Henry.  
… _If_ she is who he thinks she is.  
"You're, um…" He pauses, realizing he never actually caught her name from the gossip. He rephrases. "Are you that kid from Kentucky who wiped out Harry Beltik?"  
Her eyes stay fixed on the board. "If you take his knight, then you double his pawns." He is not sure whether she had ignored his question or thought her argument was answer enough. Yet everything snaps into place. Why should any of it even _matter_? She is a _kid_ , and this is _chess_. Nothing _important_ has changed, and he will make sure they all know it.  
So he shrugs and turns back to the board. He is still in the middle of a lesson, and this is Levertov's old college team. "Big deal. But like I said, it's all pawns, and no hope," he reminds, pointing out the weakness in the girl's suggestion. "Let me show you how to win with black…."  
When his soulmark settles, Benny Watts is twenty-three and already playing five games FIDE will never rate. (He adds another.)

She is fifteen years old when she hears her words, feels her wrist itch, and understands what has happened. She recognizes her match from the cover of that month's _Chess Review_ , and wishes that she had not been so impulsive. The men in the crowd keep glancing at her, and she knows their scrutiny is not for her audacity in breaking into their closed world. No, it is for her association with the man in black who is maneuvering the pieces on the board.  
She wants to run from their eyes, the instinct of an orphan who witnessed the price of ten demerits and didn't forget, but a simmering resentment keeps her rooted to the spot. So she watches. And as the pieces dance across the board, she is drawn in by the game.  
When Watts sets the rook on K5 and invites his audience to find White's next move, she answers automatically… as does the man sitting across the board. Discomfited, she holds her tongue as the plays unfold. The game is brilliant, like one of the examples from her books come to life, but her appreciation is soured by the sense that she is inherently out of place.  
She fidgets as they discuss the original match; it seems irrelevant, and she wants to see the endgame. But then the man asks about the next move, which is confirmed with a dry "What else has he got?", and she spies an alternative. She almost speaks up, but Watts is already dismantling the set. She lets it go. Then he turns to her and observes that Reshevsky had been on that level at her age. He addresses her as a little girl despite knowing she is fifteen, and the diminution bothers her more than she would like. She doesn't call him out, however: her mind is on more important things. Like chess.  
Instead, she asks if he is playing at the tournament. He twitches, and says that he was just here to meet with friends. She finds herself disappointed, even though it means the prize money is secure. (She hopes he doesn't mean what she thinks he is implying— she doesn't know what she would do if her match is the type to rest on his laurels.)  
He claps her on the shoulder, wishes her luck, and is gone.  
(Almost. The ghost remains.)  
The crowd is staring openly now, and she is annoyed to be left to deal with the mess. Since Watts has disappeared to who knows where, she stares (glares) down the men until the group breaks up. Only then, unsettled by the whole encounter, she looks down at her crossed arms. The mark is now a clearly delineated black. Beth Harmon has found her soulmate, and knows that she cannot wait to crush him.

But for all their convenience, soulmarks come with a price. That price, much like the value assigned to the marks, is largely the product of the human mind. For example, some people may think a match entitles them to the other in any number of ways. Anything that a person predisposed to this line of thinking can easily become dangerous. The exploitation of a soulmark for political influence, money, or sex, are among the most notorious such examples, but more insidious threats exist.

23 (15)

There is no rejoicing, no screaming, no real change. This is reality, and soulmates meet every day. Neither the fact that both play chess nor that both can draw the attention of a room of their peers by merely stepping into it matters to the marks. They go their separate ways, one presumably to her first match, and the other to the nearest payphone, because he needs to talk this out and there are so few people he actually trusts in this world. That is where Weiss finds him.  
They watch the first round of matches from the wings, but his eyes keep returning to the board at Table 15. _E. Harmon_ , the board reads. She plays beautifully, with a natural instinct for the game and a boldness vaguely reminiscent of Bronstein. But she is all offense, and lacks the experience she needs to win in the higher ranks. For once, he is glad that he isn't playing. She is just not ready yet.  
(But she will be, he thinks.)  
Benny is twenty-three, and has held the US title for half a decade. He did not get there by ignoring advancing pawns.

After her conversation with the twins from the Kentucky State Championship— an ego boost she appreciates— she returns to her room. Alma looks up from the desk when she arrives; she had been reading the _Enquirer_ when Beth left. "Finished already?"  
"Yes."  
"How did you do?"  
"I won." Mrs. Wheatley smiles warmly, and calls her a treasure. Beth bites her lip. "I ran into my soulmate."  
Alma's breath hitches. "Oh?" "What's his name? If it is a he, I mean?" She sounds wistful, and Beth is reminded that Alma never found her match. In lieu of an answer, she crosses the room to her luggage and pulls out the October issue of _Chess Review_. She taps the cover. "That's him."  
Alma's eyebrows reach for her hairline. "Goodness!"  
Beth shrugs. "There are matches that are for something other than marriage, right?" She knows the answer, has known since she was nine, but at this moment she needs the confirmation. (This is something she was told at Methuen that mothers and daughters are supposed to be able to talk about, but her mother refused to, and she doesn't have any other points of reference.)  
Alma looks sympathetic. "Of course. Was it _that_ bad a first impression?"  
Beth thinks about it. "I'm not sure. He called me a little girl, though."  
Alma makes a face. "Do I need to be having words with him?"  
She glances out the window. "He left right after, I think."  
Alma purses her lips, clearly thinking, then nods to herself resolutely. "You have four hours before your next match. A shopping trip will help take your mind off things." Perhaps it is cliche, this response to the upset of a fifteen-year-old girl, but Beth welcomes the distraction regardless, and her new cashmere sweater (with sleeves long enough to comfortably conceal her mark) even more.

The most common threat is to children, where questions of consent arise. What happens when a new mark appears, and the age difference is not a matter of months but nearly a decade? Or when on the wrist of a near-teenager, people see the pale shadow of an infant's first tentative fingerpaint? Is it evidence of a non-romantic match, a long wait, a lonely life, or a crime waiting to happen? Humans, by cautious nature, often assume the worst. (Do be careful.)

23 (15)

He had intended to drive back to New York overnight. Instead, he gets pins and needles shooting up his arm from his mark, and he cannot operate the controls. Weiss puts him up at his apartment, but he doesn't sleep. He plans, and rearranges those plans again as he stares at the ceiling. But he doesn't have enough information. (Enough to change everything, but not enough to rebuild from.)  
Rather than drive tired the next morning, he returns to the Gibson to watch the second day of matches. That is how he comes to be waylaid by a black-haired housewife who introduces herself as Mrs. Wheatley just inside the Taft room's double doors. She claims to be his soulmate's adopted mother. They test each other a bit, neither trusting the other to be who they claim, before both decide to accept the other at (relative) face value.  
She demands he explain to her his last-ditch attempt to shape how the public thinks he sees her before the rumors start flying. He admits that it was clumsy, but doesn't apologize. Mrs. Wheatley hums, and mentions being unfamiliar with the politics surrounding the game. He almost laughs, thinking of his own crash course. This is not politics, this is _people_ , he corrects.  
Mrs. Wheatley is unphased. "I've been dealing with people all my life," she says, tapping her wrist. The lettering on her wrist shifts slightly as she speaks; he averts his eyes, point taken.  
Instead, he briefs her on what consequences the mark may have for Harmon's career. A few stand out. While players learning from each other is a natural part of the game, the accusations of cheating during the 1962 Interzonal have made FIDE more wary of collusion than usual, and by extension, two-player matches. They will be watching. The next is that the State Department might get involved if one of them gets to go to the Second World. Then there is the impact public opinion may have on tournament invites. There are only so many ways to avoid it. Mrs. Wheatley concludes that the best way to do that would be for him to keep his distance. He agrees.  
He is pleasantly surprised that Mrs. Wheatley asks for suggestions of what she can do to help her daughter. Outside of chess, she clarifies. Thinking back, he has a few. "Start learning Russian. Both of you. It's easier to learn with a partner, and she's gonna need it eventually." He pauses. "She should have a partner to play against too."  
"Not you, of course," she teases.  
If this was a test, his answer would not change. "Definitely not."  
Benny is twenty-three, and still at the height of his career. He doesn't want to put that at risk. But he's not letting slip his "workman-like" chess methodology, the days-long periods spent locked in his apartment without distractions, the small library he devours on a semi-annual basis, or how he started playing poker to practice reading his opponents long before it became his go-to for cash. He's barely touching on chess at all. He's just advising a concerned parent on raising a prodigy.  
He contemplates drafting an article on the subject as he steals a scorecard from the nearest table and scribbles his number down for Mrs. Wheatley. (It's not like Black needs it, he reasons. Rudolph's got him in five.) She seems to be contemplating something herself; when he hands her the paper she finally asks. "Thank you, you've been very helpful, but…"  
"But?"  
"What do you want from her?" Ah, the old parental interrogation. Benny has expected this question since she showed up, but he's known the answer since he was thirteen. (To play and to lose, to match wits and be pushed to greater heights. The reason he's wanted to play the Soviets from the beginning. The reason he first read his mark and felt _excitement_.)  
"Chess."

After her morning match on the second day, she introduces Alma to Matt and Mike. Their soulmarks are strange: settled, but in the form of splotches that look almost like tiny bruises. Matt catches her staring at lunch, and laughs. "I got his fingerprints… he's got my foot," he explains. She thinks it is incredible that soulmarks could settle so soon after birth, but Alma corrects her and they confirm her assessment— they were born with settled marks, a phenomenon only possible with multiple births, and rare even then.  
They tell her that someone on the New York team is claiming she is Benny Watts' soulmate. She doesn't deny it, and they don't congratulate her. Mike warns her that some may cry favoritism. Alma confesses that this morning she was given similar advice from a veteran player. She thinks it is foolish, but Matt reasons that there will always be those men who would prefer to be on the wrong end of collusion than admit to being beaten by a woman. "Even without your match, you would still be getting flack. Doesn't matter if you are a grandmaster. They won't see you as a player first," they opine, "and it will carry over to how people see your games."  
"And that'll affect the invites you get."  
"That's why Nona Gaprindashvili stopped playing in normal tournaments—"  
"—though that might be due to that disagreement with Luchenko," interrupts Matt.  
She has an idea, though. She tells the twins that she had seen a few errors in Watts' games, and that she is certain she can beat him eventually. "The US Championship. Would that be enough?"  
They shrug. "Try World Champion," Matt snorts. His twin looks thoughtful, though, and suggests that she start learning Russian since the title has been held by the Soviets for decades. Alma admits that the player she spoke to had the same suggestion, even though the prospect clearly daunts her.  
The memories of being doubted for her skills and feeling left out because of her gender are fresh on her mind still, and they make the answer easy. "I'll beat them all."  
And, at least at the Gibson Hotel in Cincinnati, Beth does.  
(It's a start.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah! A horde of dialogue appeared!  
> Can I just say that this chapter was murder to write? Right. I went through like five iterations of the meeting scene, and am still not satisfied. But honestly? I tried romance. I tried humor. Ten Different Levels of Awkward was the most in-character scenario to play out. Take a look:  
> Benny's thoughts: 1. Oh shit the kid is female. And it's way too late for people to assume sibling like bond. And definitely people will start assuming, and because these guys are watching there's witnesses. I don't want to be the next W.R. Henry. So how do I get out of this without looking like a creep?  
> 1b. Oh. Right. Piss her off. But that could lay the wrong foundation too. Solution: chess.  
> 1c. He only has five seconds to think about it. [The tapping is his tell] He is an ENTP who plays speed chess and that may mean impulsivity and pre-canned responses. He is not in a place where he can really process and judge, so he is still in the gathering phase. He stalls.  
> 2\. Hahaha. Kid thinks that they found a way. Confident, but wrong.  
> 3\. Is there an echo in here? No. She's keeping up but so is this guy.  
> 4\. Kid needs to do more background reading.  
> 5\. Emphasize seniority without publicizing myself, maybe it worked? No, just ticked her off; she wants to beat me. Okay. Can deal. Wish luck. _Run._  
>  Yes. That was my original outline for the scene. The other options were funny, but not really conducive to a good story. Hopefully it comes through in the Beth-POV.
> 
> Speaking of story, I did not intend for canon to go off the rails so early, but now we have an Alma armed with advice from somewhere other than Good Housekeeping and a Beth on a warpath and I can't bring myself to take any of it back. Pacing should get back to normal next chapter.
> 
> Dimitri Luchenko gets a mention, because of reasons. :)
> 
> By the way, has anyone noticed that the Netflix adaptation places both B2's first meeting and Beth's US Championship title in Ohio? From a writing standpoint, I gotta give them the point over Tevis. It brings the arc of Beth's rise in the USA full circle.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world does not stop when you meet your match.  
> Leave and learn and live. You will find your way back.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Welcome to 1964.

15 (23)

She returns to Lexington with a check that only Alma and the bank appreciate, and a set mark that everyone in Kentucky seems to think is the highest imaginable priority for a fifteen-year-old girl. The reactions she receives during the series of errands Alma accompanies her through on Monday morning cement her dread for the week.  
At the county records office, the secretary spews advice at her, and brightens when told her match lives out of state ("less talk, dearie"). At the doctor's office that Alma takes her to, the receptionist pesters her with questions about her match. Dr. McAndrews at least is professional, and even he hands her pamphlet after pamphlet bearing inane titles like "So You've Met Your Soulmate!" and "Mark Sympathy - What You Need to Know". (She knows she will never read them, and only takes them to be polite.) And then there are the school administrators, who permit her to miss the day for the task of registering her match when she is under no illusions that they would have allowed her to travel to Cincinnati under honest pretenses.  
After that, she dreads her classmates' reactions. She wears sleeves at all times, her new sweater proving more than worth its price. She delays changing in the locker room until everyone else is out. None of her efforts work for long; by Thursday morning she walks through the doors and is greeted by stares. She endures the whispers and glares with as much dignity as she can muster. She decides she much prefers the dismissing looks and assessing glances at the Gibson to the dull pettiness of her peers.  
Salvation comes an hour after lunch. The teacher is called out of the room, and returns pale. He tells them that someone just killed the President in Dallas. The room explodes into chatter, and not a word of it is about her. As the teacher attempts to reinstate some sense of normalcy, she just plays out games on the ceiling and tries not to think that the killer did her a favor.  
Lessons end early, and the students are sent home. The next day school is shut, while every television isn't. When school resumes on Monday, she is relieved to be yesterday's news.  
Beth is fifteen, and favors a strong attack on the board. But she has also spent half her life at Methuen; she remembers the security of being beneath notice. She is happy to put the past few weeks of her mind.

He is twenty-three and for fifteen years he has ignored a piece on the board.  
(What is she? Pawn, queen, king?)  
He digs into every article that even mentions an E. Harmon in an attempt to assuage his oversight. He finds nothing dated before October 1963. Until, that is, he gets lucky. He is calling around Lexington, and an operator directs him to a Mr. Ganz. A week later, he receives an envelope in the mail from Mount Sterling, KY. Enclosed are a couple of papers. The first is a clipping, a short article from some local newspaper. It describes a nine-year-old orphan defeating the high school chess club in a twelve-man simultaneous.  
The other is a xerox copy of a photograph— an older man and a young girl stare grimly up at him from the page. The ink is blotchy where the paper was folded, and of course it is in monochrome, but he recognizes the cut of her hair, the set of her eyes.  
_This_ , he realizes, is the kid who almost died twice before her tenth birthday and endured some kind of recurring, dull danger in between. (And never really stopped, the way his mark still goes numb at times.)  
Unsettled, he flips the page over, and realizes Ganz left a note on the back, and twelve lines of notation. He reads the note first. It says that soon after, she was forbidden from playing again.  
His jaw drops. What should have been a miracle became a blip on the radar in less than a week. While it explains her late discovery, the prospect leaves him stunned. It was so evident even then she was exceptional, so why was she stopped from playing?  
As a former prodigy himself, the concept is baffling. He has to think it out. Either someone made the kid stop playing then, or her absence had been voluntary but circumstances have forced her to start playing again. The first seems infinitely more likely, and unspeakably cruel.  
Rather than dwell, he returns to the transcribed games. They are beyond one-sided, but…  
Benny is twenty-three, and should be preparing for the Greater New York Open next week, and the Interzonal in six months. Instead, he sets Borgov's latest aside to analyze a nine-year-old's games.  
(He never could resist a puzzle.) 

The late president John F. Kennedy was the latest in a long line of U.S. Presidents with ambiguous soulmarks. His was settled, but that is as much as the State Department is willing to divulge. You may have noticed that Mrs. Kennedy didn't flinch on that motorcade. Not one grab to her arm. Some see this as a sign of her strength— others, that his mark was for someone else.

15 (23)

She is fifteen. She cannot drive, legally or in fact. It should not have been a problem, and yet somehow, it becomes just that.  
When they return from Pittsburgh, Alma asks her who taught her to play, and she answers. She did not think anything of it then. But a week later, she discovers Alma discussing the issue over the phone with Mr. Shaibel because the thirty miles to Mount Sterling are an obstacle when neither adult can.  
In the end, she gets a stack of correspondence chess cards in the mail alongside the December issue of _Chess Review_. Playing by post is not ideal; it is inconvenient and demands a different playstyle. But her old mentor has played correspondence for almost two decades and under worse conditions than these. She hears this, and refuses to be stopped from playing by the US Mail.  
They make it work.  
"It" is not perfect, and definitely not what Alma had hoped for when she first called Methuen Home and requested to speak to their janitor, but it is something. They barely converse, but Shaibel is about as talkative on paper as he is in person anyway.  
They play four games at once. Because the cards Shaibel sent provide space for two games, she fills out the moves for two and sends it out, and later receives two back. She then waits two weeks to receive Mr. Shaibel's moves and post her next. But she gets impatient, and on the in-between week sends out another card with the openings for two more.  
Mr. Shaibel refuses to play more than that. He tells her she needs to learn patience. She thinks waiting two weeks for the next move is enough of an exercise in patience, but because he has often been right about her, she does try.  
Beth is fifteen, and can count two great endings in her life prior to Alma. At the end of each, her contact with the people from that time ended as well. Mr. Shaibel is the first person she remembers to come back (or perhaps never really be left behind). So she learns patience, and the post office, and maybe a bit about people who matter.

He is twenty-three years old. The Intercollegiate Chess Championship is the day after Christmas, and Levertov's old team will be playing. He and Wexler still play against them, with the tacit understanding that they are passing on tactics honed against the National Champion. As he enjoys a New York victory as much as any Manhattanite, and can tell that these boys won't be serious competitors once they graduate, he really didn't mind the arrangement until the invite to to watch the Championship shows up in the mail.  
He would have ignored it, but his friends bring it up over drinks on Christmas Eve. Levertov of course wants to go, and he _does_ owe Wexler for letting him into Columbia's newspaper archive. Against his better judgment, he caves.  
He regrets it throughout the ten-hour drive in the backseat of Levertov's rickety truck.  
He regrets it when they arrive, and he is first mistaken for a member of a team from Texas and then for a junior player.  
He regrets it when he watches the games, and is half-convinced the players want to drive him to distraction with the lost opportunities and obvious blunders and _he can't say anything_.  
He especially regrets it when a reporter asks him whether his soulmate really is that girl from the recent _Chess Review_ article. It is the first time he has been ambushed by the press since his mark set, and while he doesn't want to lie on paper, the kid is being protected by the rumors being just _rumors_. So he takes the first interruption he gets— an older man in a red and white mittens— as an out.  
The man claims there was a Miss Harmon on the Cornell faculty in the late forties, and wants to know if there might be a relationship. If he were a detective, this would be an essential lead. But he is a chess player, not Sherlock Holmes. This should _not_ be his department. It is an oddly personal dilemma. This unknown is asking after his soulmate, to whom he has only spoken once, and whom he is actively trying _not_ to be associated with. But she is an orphan, so she might be curious. He compromises, and takes down an address for her mother to pursue if they so choose.  
Benny is twenty-three, and has a fifteen-year-old soulmate.That doesn't make him her guardian, or her press secretary. He is facing five Russians in as many months, and that needs to take priority.

American culture has a particular "ideal" of a soulmark match being the optimal choice for marriage. Despite the statistics suggesting some foundation, this has consequences for those matches that do not fit the assumptions such an ideal makes. The most common incongruence is, of course, polarity. Even when one disregards the issue of orientation, the illegality of same-sex marriages strongly discourages compatable matches from exploring the possibility. After the issue of polarity, the most consequential deviance from their "ideal" is those with significant age differences. Such matches seldom are at a compatible stage in their life's journey when they meet, and the expectations of either the elder match, the "ideal" upheld by society, or one's peers may push the younger to attempt to assume roles for which they are unprepared.

15 (24)

She is fifteen, and hasn't had regular partners to practice with other than Mr. Shaibel. Then Annette Packer calls, responding to an advertisement Alma posted in the _Herald-Leader_ after they got back from Miami. They play at Toby's on Monday afternoons. She always wins, but Annette provides another perspective of her tournament matches, and analyzing the other girl's games helps her explore the reasoning behind moves she would not have considered worthwhile.  
More importantly for her, though, the upperclasswoman from Henry Clay has experienced four years of tournaments mostly where girls usually need not apply. There is a comradery in that, and in the experience of being the "brain" of their year and the isolation that accompanies it. Their conversations seldom venture outside the realm of chess, but they do experiment with math from texts Annette pilfers from her college-age brother's bedroom. Neither of them mention the soulmarks, which is a pleasant change of pace from the chatter she overhears at school.  
Beth is fifteen and three months old when she realizes she has found a friend outside Methuen. She still misses Jolene, but this helps.

He turns twenty-four playing some of the best games of his life to date. (He wants to crow from the rooftops that two Soviets drew against him. He settles for promising himself that he will pin the games on the wall when he gets back.)  
It is the end of the Interzonal, and he will not be going on to the Candidates Tournament this time. Reshevsky, half a point ahead of him, might— if he wins the playoff. _If_ the older American doesn't waste too much time in the beginning like he normally does. But that is not his problem.  
He reviews his own games in his head. New mistakes and better alternatives sear themselves into his mind with each replay. Oh, he will learn from them, _is_ learning, but they are proof he is still not ready to take on Borgov again. (He thinks of his mark, of pins-and-needles, of red hair and grim eyes, and tries not to wonder if he has enough time to improve.)  
He reminds himself that he already _knew_ this would not be his cycle, not with the bastion of Soviet Chess unified against the world. As ever, facing them was a reminder that the only way forward is how _they_ train, how _they_ share, the real "school" _they_ hide behind the cover of a style. And by virtue of seven thousand miles and a wall of political rhetoric he _can't_.  
But on that board, this tournament is not a loss. He speaks with his final Soviet opponent after their match. The Muscovite is amused when he brings up the Invitational and asks why he throws himself at further punishment. He wants to remind him that it was not he who called for the two draws. Instead, he stays his tongue and lets the guards chuckle. A sacrifice so the reminder is passed on.  
Benny is twenty-four, and five years have passed since he first realized that _his game_ had become a pawn on a much larger board. He has kept an eye on the papers. The USSR and the US are fairly stable at the moment, but with open war brewing in Asia this state of affairs may not last. Borgov's interest in playing New World opponents has long been implied by his presence at major tournaments in Central and South America. That view seems cemented by his appearance in Los Angeles last year.  
This time next year, there may be a new champion, a new president, and a new war. This may be the last chance that the old seat can find its way back to the tables in Moscow. He couldn't let this chance pass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aka Alma's misadventures in getting Beth to socialize bear fruit. XP  
> Short chapter, and a little rough. Ended up cutting down some parts of Beth's experience--her first Thanksgiving, actually-- for format. (Really should start putting a scraps pile together, but I keep thinking I may need the material for flashbacks.)  
> Sorry, Cleo. Benny is a bit too busy to pay up right now.  
> Also, Levertov and Wexler decided to come back and take Benny on a road trip to Indiana. On Boxing Day. _Fun._  
>  Not trying to rag about Reshevsky, without Fischer he was probably the best player the States had in 1964. I just think Benny would look at his habit of losing time in the opening, and be driven _nuts_. Because, speed chess. (See new Unreliable Narrator tag)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cleo looked wistful. "You may be being wise," she mused, lips thinning around her cigarette, "or the greatest of fools."  
> 

24 (15)

He is twenty-four, and by now he knows his return to New York means a return to responsibilities put on the back burner by the Interzonal. He just didn't anticipate running into the first one so quickly, or at all. It is his landlady, who informs him he hadn't paid the rent for last month and the only reason his stuff isn't on the curb is that he has always been good about it before now. He wonders why she didn't get the money, then realizes he forgot to mail it. He finds the envelope acting as a placeholder in the pages of _The Middle Game in Chess_. He adds to it the rent for this month, and rushes out to pay.  
The reminder brings down the last dregs of his post-tournament high. His internal clock is still off, and it is daylight, so rather than crash he goes through the routines of rebuilding his life after a month away. The water, the power. Mail. Calls— to his sister, to Wexler and Levertov, and to Weiss. He calls his doctor and reports two more episodes of numbness overseas.  
He checks the books. The trip to Amsterdam had set him back more than he would have liked; the prize money even for first place was $250, and he was tenth. Yet the costs of Amsterdam pale next to the pricetag he can expect from Intourist. The last thing he wants is to be unable to go because he cannot afford to.  
The Championship and a couple large domestic tournaments should cover the rest for the year, if he is cautious in his other hobby and avoids events he knows he will lose. He is signed up for the upcoming Olympiad, if USCF gives the go-ahead. He makes a note to check with the Federation about reimbursements. There is an international tournament in Paris concurrent with the Capablanca Memorial, and it has a nice prize attached. But it will still require a bit more if he is to break even this year. He does not like doing Opens, doesn't like to gamble with chess or his rating, but he adds a few more to his calendar.  
Eventually, he collects his Beetle from his friends. Levertov asks him if he has seen _Chess Life_ 's last two supplemental rankings lists. Benny hadn't bothered, hadn't the time the last three months. The implication that he missed something interesting now drives him back to the neglected periodicals.  
He reads the first list, and then the second. He makes some calls.  
Benny is twenty-four, and has heard about soulmate rivalries almost as long as he has played. He understands their value in competitive environments. Rivals are supposed to push you forward. They can't do that if they are hamstrung before they can catch up.

She is fifteen, so Matt and Mike draw odd looks from the neighbors when they show up on the doorstep one Saturday morning in late June. They brandish a mangled April-issue _Herald-Leader_ like a Bible and ask why they weren't called if she needed victims. She retorts that they said they "could only lose so much". Alma laughs at their antics and tells them to come inside.  
The twins become a fixture of her Saturday mornings in Lexington. They lose constantly, even when they add handicaps like blindfolds, until one day Alma suggests that they play her two-against-one. They had dismissed the idea already because, despite what some superstitions may claim, neither twins nor soulmates can share thoughts. Their discussion would give their plans away. But Alma thinks she has a workaround. So they play on two boards, one in the kitchen and the other in the living room. She wears earmuffs and Alma passes their moves around the wall and the unknowing anchor on CBS provides a barrier of sound to drown out the twins' louder whispers.  
It's messy, and slow, and they have to pause their play when the phone rings and Alma answers it, but it is _fun_. She realizes she hasn't laughed like this since she was in Methuen with Jolene. It feels the same.  
But then the twins actually manage to force a draw, and she stops laughing. She wanted a win. She _always_ wants to win.  
Later, Alma reminds Beth that two collegiate players teamed up to defeat a fifteen-year-old with less than six months of competitive experience, and all they could manage was a draw. Beth thinks about it, and counts it a win anyway.

Serial killers commonly first target their soulmate, and may seek them out to do so. Other times, a sufferer of psychiatric episodes, paranoia, or delusions may turn on their match, often in the belief that it will free themselves. The papers are rife with examples of matches gone wrong, and before paper, rumors and myth.

24 (15)

He is twenty-four, and while others his age are working, or protesting, or finishing their degrees, he spends the summer fundraising. A tournament in Cincinnati, then the usual Fourth of July pileup. He is tempted by the Southern, with its promise of decent opponents. But he can't risk the money, and his arm has been going numb for the last three nights. Instead, he grits through the Eastern, then hopscotches back up the coast, fleecing the unwary in clubs enroute.  
He defends his title, paying attention to the reports of Harmon that circulate the campus. He is not surprised that she dominates the Western. She does not go against big names— she is not taking risks with her livelihood. Fiscally smart, but she isn't being pushed.  
He faintly regrets not being in New York to see her play, but Wexler went while he defended his title. Together they analyze her games and mental state based on his observations.  
He is reviewing for the Remy-Vallon when he receives a call from Mrs. Wheatley. He hasn't heard from her since June, but he has been expecting this to happen since the kid swept the Western.  
Harmon has an interview with _Life_. Not _Chess Life_ , just _Life_. He is glad Mrs. Wheatley called. She may be excited by the prospect of fame, but she clearly understands the magazine lacks the topical focus to write about the games rather than the player. He rambles off some of the strategies he had developed for dealing with the press. "Decide what you are willing to share and what to keep private ahead of time. Don't lie, but don't give them anything you don't want everyone to know. If they start pressing, remind them she's a minor, and they're in your house. Whatever you do, don't leave her alone with them—"  
Mrs. Wheatley interrupts. "Beth is fifteen…. You don't think?"  
He winces; that was not what he had wanted to imply. "No, she's safe. But they may think they can get more details than they could with an adult around," he points out. A particular interview from his early teens stands out. It had been right after Annapolis. Thirteen, fifteen… probably still applicable. "Also, keep them away from her room, if you can. Definitely no photography…" He hears Mrs. Wheatley scribbling, and keeps going.  
Benny is twenty-four, but he was once a child prodigy, and has been in the public eye almost as long as he can remember. Harmon is much older than he was when he began, but she and Mrs. Wheatley have had no preparation. Since there aren't really books on this sort of thing, he is the best resource they have. He could let them figure it out for themselves, but.... Their mistakes could impact him down the line, he tells himself. So he pauses his preparation for Paris, and talks.

She is fifteen, and is doing her first simultaneous demonstration at the University of Kentucky. It is the twins' fault, she is certain. (A lot of things are their fault.) It is they who suggest that she needs even more "victims", and they who volunteer their school's team for the trial.  
She has school, and she and Alma are scheduled to take Russian on Friday nights. She could turn down their suggestion. But after the interview with _Life_ , during which Alma had to keep interrupting Miss Balke's attempts to probe into the soulmate issue, she has to cut back on major tournaments and the publicity they attract. A two-hour-long weekly exhibition before their class is too convenient an opportunity to pass up. Alma asks her, and she agrees.  
She does not quite understand the humor in their jokes about human sacrifice, but their mood buoys her as they escort her to the meeting. The last time she did one of these, she was amazed how easy it was, and she had been only nine. But Townes was a decent opponent when he played her, and he had been first board. While he apparently graduated in June, she assumes his replacement is of similar caliber.  
Her hopes for a challenge sink when she sees the first board— a man in a worn Duncan High School blazer— pale at the sight of her. Despite the rush of satisfaction that accompanies someone seeing her as a threat, she's played enough to know that players that react with fear are unlikely to provide a challenge. Just from his reaction, she suspects his position is more due to seniority than skill.  
Her suspicions prove correct. Matt and Mike play to their usual standards, but she is disappointed with how quickly she takes out the rest of the six-man team. She cannot see how she would benefit from staying longer, but Mike catches her at the door. Then the team begins to assess their games, and the twins make sure the others listen to her.  
She cannot explain how she thinks, and does not want to give away her thoughts. She is uncomfortable with the attention, despite the twins running interference and Alma smiling at her from a chair on the side. She certainly cannot mention the pills or the illusory board above their heads. Instead, she speaks up about _their_ precise moves, _their_ weaknesses, and how she countered them. The team members try different moves, and she gives the weaknesses of those. She tells them why they are wrong over and over again. It is frustrating, having to spell what look like the simplest blunders to her out in such detail. Can't they _see?_  
She is speaking to four strange young men, all shock and resentment and freshly wounded pride. A volatile demographic. And yet, these men also value intelligence, _aspire_ to it, and were warned in advance what they would be facing. It is not easy, but eventually the twins don't need to work to make their peers listen, or to get Beth to talk. By the end of the hour, when she speaks, she speaks with confidence, and the entire team and their coach listen.  
And yet Beth is fifteen years old, and has ventured far outside her realm of experience. Her confidence leaves her at the door. She does not know what to think, or why this bothers her so much. "Am I really that different?", she asks Mrs. Wheatley that night, after they get home. Alma hugs her. A hug isn't an answer, and that, she thinks, is an answer in itself.

In many cultures there are superstitions attached to "dead marks" and those who bear them. Although a period of seclusion is more common after the "death", as characterized by loss of sensation in the skin, in a few primitive cultures bearers are regarded as taboo. So too are "unmet" "dead marks" - usually distinguishable, due to the presence of trace pigmentation.

24 (15)

He is twenty-four, and at the Remy-Vallon Invitational. He had to adjourn early today, the sudden pins-and-needles of his arm throwing him off. He knows he cannot afford a handicap against an opponent like Laev, but it is irritating nonetheless that a game could be interrupted by a misbehaving soulmark.  
He wants a distraction. Cleo is back from Berlin, he knows. He had sought her out after his match with Duhamel on the first day of matches. It was as good a time to pay her back as any. He found her at the salon on the Marais, and they caught up on the way to her apartment. She asks him about "the girl" who had won her two hundred American, and he accuses her of gloating that she was right about his rival. Cleo laughs. "Indulge me." But he cannot answer most of her questions, though. He could analyze her style right now, talk about her favorite strategies for hours. But Cleo doesn't want to hear about chess, and he does not know much about the kid beyond that. There is what he saw in Cincinnati and in a photocopied picture, and Cleo was asking about her favorite foods or if she had friends. He finally confesses that he knows her mother better than her. "It's safer for our careers," he defended.  
Cleo looked wistful. "You may be being wise," she mused, lips thinning around her cigarette, "or the greatest of fools."  
He wanted to take offense; to remind her that whatever might-have-been she envisions does not dictate his own life. But he has seen her dead mark, and it embodies one point he can never refute. Time is _never_ on their side. Cleo seemed to take his silence for her victory. "Think about it," she stated with finality.  
She did not invite him up.  
Benny is twenty-four, and has been mulling over it for five days now. He's still no closer to an answer.

She is fifteen, and in the middle of her fourth simultaneous at the University. She is walking across the room to the fifth board when she hears the door open. This is not unusual, and she ignores it.  
But then she hears a familiar voice.  
" _There_ you are, Cracker."  
Beth is fifteen, and has known that voice for half her life. She cannot ignore it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took some convoluted thinking to get through the timeline. Realworld, there wasn't a 1964/1965 national championships (it took place in December/January), apparently because of the combined expenses of 1964's international calendar, which featured the Interzonal and the 16th Olympiad. The Open, on the other hand, did take place in August. Now, Tevis reversed the seasons - the National Championships taking place in July/August and the Open taking place in September (1963) or late January (1966). The decision to cancel was made in November, during/after the Olympiad. It would make more sense that the 1965 Open would be canceled, since it immediately follows the Olympiad if we accept the Tevis Switch as a reliable aspect of the AU, but then they also began the National Open that year… But if we conflate the two, at least for this year, it makes sense. Especially since the Open ALWAYS seems to be in Vegas in Tevis-verse.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You're _already_ changing your world. I want to change mine."

15 (24)

She is fifteen, and up until it happened could never have imagined walking away from a game this close to checkmate. But Jolene is there, a second ghost to track her past the Methuen's doors, and she wants to react, how could she _not_?  
But her mind is blank and her mouth is dry and she does not know what to think. People even _staying_ , let alone coming back into her life, is still so new. But she is in the middle of a simultaneous, and while this is new, interruptions in these exhibitions have become enough of a regular occurrence that Alma now fields the gawkers at the door. But Jolene is one person she does not want turned away. So she excuses herself, and walks over to the door.  
And Alma's voice cuts through her thoughts. "Beth, do you know this girl? She says she is from Methuen." She nods, and cannot help but smile. "Yes, Mother. This is Jolene, _my friend_." Jolene smiles back. Alma raises her eyebrows. "Oh my…. I didn't realize that…." She trails off, clearly puzzled about something. Beth does not know what.  
"Ma'am, I am truly sorry for the interruption," Jolene says, in carefully measured tones. "Mr. Shaibel didn't have the room number, so I had to do some hunting."  
It is bewildering to hear her speak so respectfully, but Alma's eyes brighten, and her entire manner softens. "Oh, I _see_. Why didn't you tell me Mr. Shaibel sent you?" Alma shakes her head, and she follows the direction of her gaze. The coach, who was climbing to his feet, leans back against the into his chair.  
Reminded of the others in the room, she can't help but feel embarrassed by how long this is taking. She blurts out, "Would you like to watch?"  
Jolene laughs. " _Watch_ you beat all these guys? Girl, I'd take photos if I had a camera."  
"The photographer is coming next week," Mike cuts in from behind. She turns, and sees a strange look on his face. Matt looks at him, confused, but offers that, "it's for the State Championship, but we can have copies made." Jolene raises an eyebrow skeptically, but thanks them.  
Alma seems to decide on something, and interrupts. "Perhaps we ought to step outside for a bit. Will you be alright, dear?" she asks Beth.  
Beth nods, and smiles slightly as she watches them leave the room. While happy to see Jolene again, she is relieved to have the exhibition back to normal again. She is fifteen; is hard enough to command a room of twenty-somethings without interference.  
The door clicks shut, and she breathes out. She stands up straight, and approaches the fifth board. _Queen to bishop five_ , she thinks, and moves. "Check."

He is twenty-four, and returns from Europe to a thick envelope covered in Cyrillic stamps. He opens it, already knowing what it says. He reads it anyway.  
He is on the list for the 1965 Invitational. He has a year to prepare.  
Benny is twenty-four, and the first American in five years to receive this opening. He considers this both a checkmate and an adjournment— one board has closed, but the higher stakes game still ongoing.  
(He can advance again. He feels like he can _breathe_.)

While the use of soulmarks for government identification has been known at least since the Qin Dynasty of ancient China, the systematic registry of soulmarks in modern times seems to be a direct consequence of the American Civil War. As the body count rose, the machinery of a nationwide draft, artists, and the advent of photography combined to provide the basis of the modern registry... The high mortality and long distances of this large-scale conflict contrasted with the prevailing beliefs regarding what constitutes a "good death", creating a need for body identification and closure that various technologies attempted to fulfill... In the age of firearms, head injuries provided an insurmountable obstacle to identifying bodies most easily overcome by the unique soulmark on a person's dominant hand, where it was still intact...

15 (24)

She is fifteen, and not very hungry despite the hour. She picks on the ice cream while Alma makes small talk and Jolene describes what happened after she was adopted.  
"…it wasn't like I was trying to ignore you. I did something that had me grounded until graduation, and left straight after. Shaibel isn't allowed to talk to any of us, so I didn't know you even wrote until I came back last month to collect some papers and he shoved this flyer in my face and told me to go."  
Jolene says she is studying at Kentucky State College on a Physical Education scholarship, although she plans on switching to Poli-Sci as soon as she can afford it. "It's all thanks to Beth, here," she tells Alma. "Her and that dictionary phase." With that, she guides the conversation into an anecdote of her soulmark investigations at Methuen, and away from Jolene's work with the NAACP. She thinks that Jolene leaves details out for Alma's sake, which is as concerning as what she does say.  
When Alma excuses herself to the Ladies', she asks for details. Jolene prevaricates. She persists, and finally Jolene relents. "Well, you know I've wanted to get into law, heck it's kinda your fault, you and that dictionary. Wasn't going to change just 'cause you left…  
"So I hear about this protest in Frankfort, and all the big names coming— and it was on my _birthday_. It was like a sign from heaven. I ditched class and went with the Mount Sterling chapter. It was like _nothing_ you'd ever seen. _Glorious_.  
"I wanted to join up immediately. Almost did, too. But Grievous started asking about my goals and whether I had graduated, told me to go back to Methuen until I finished school. Said they'd need more lawyers. So I accepted whatever Deardorff threw at me, kept my nose clean, and joined CORE the moment I was free of that place. They've been doing things down Mississippi, and that's where people're hurting most, and I wanted to _fight_."  
Her breath catches in her throat. "Did you?" Even she had been aware of the murders in the South.  
"Me? Nah. I was too angry. They had me in the office, working papers. But I saw enough, Cracker." She rubs a hand over her face.  
Beth glances in the direction that Alma had gone. There is still no sign. She swallows. "Enough?"  
Jolene chuckles lowly, a bitter sound. "Man, this is why I didn't want to tell you… Shit. Real shit. Never thought us Methuen brats lucky, orphans and all, but there ya have it, and it's right pissing me off."  
"Everything pisses you off," she retorts— an old joke, and she gets a shove in return.  
"Yeah. But seriously, I'm going to keep with it. I'm taking the classes now, you know, for the nonviolence stuff. They teach us how to take shit the _right_ way, see. Can't be flying off the handle in a courtroom."  
Beth feels cold. She had heard the term "worried sick" before, but thought it an exaggeration. Now she knows better. "And then you go back."  
"Yeah, maybe. Wherever they need a hand," Jolene shrugs. But her worry must show on her face, because she's enveloped in a one-armed hug. "Aw, come on Cracker, it'll just be paperwork. I'm on track for _law._ Can't get myself arrested when I'll be up against the Bar in a few years."  
She thinks Jolene is taking an unnecessary risk. She says so.  
Jolene sighs. "I want what you got. Don't think I missed that article in _Life_. 'A girl Mozart,' they called you. You're already making history. You think those chess boys would be so willing to listen to you if they didn't know you're a genius? You're _already_ changing your world. I want to change mine."  
Beth thinks. It seems absurd. Aside from Jolene's ambitions, and maybe the twin's college team, she hasn't seen any evidence of it. What does Jolene mean?  
She is fifteen, and has only ever wanted to do one thing with her life. It never occurred to her how the goal she pursued for herself might impact others. She hadn't wanted to change the world. She just wanted to play the sixty-four-square board.

He is twenty-four, and hasn't received a sororal scolding like this since he was nine. In fact, he is pretty certain this tops the time he put frogs in her bed by several decibels, and that had been with their mother's expert assistance. He doesn't hang up, or set the receiver down. He is pretty certain he deserves this one.  
"—the hell, robe-stealer! This is the kind of thing you _tell_ family! You don't just say 'Yeah, it's a kid who plays chess' and leave us to piece it together from _Life!_ "  
"Uh-huh. Sorry…" He drums his fingers against the tabletop. "Wait. What did it say?"  
Her voice drops down to something safe for the human ear, and he nearly misses it. "You haven't read it yet." It is a question as much as a statement, and all disbelief.  
But he hasn't. Despite his collection, he never saw much point in subscribing to magazines he barely reads, and he had dismissed the article after Levertov mentioned only Beltik's game was printed.  
"I was in Europe."  
"You've been back two weeks." Of course someone would rat him out. He should have just gone to Belgrade. "That's no excuse."  
"I have an Olympiad to prepare for."  
His sister is having none of it. "In a _month_. You have time to go out and read a stupid magazine. I'm not telling you anything."  
A couple days later, he walks up to the bodega on the corner of Third for groceries and stops for a coffee and lunch. He spies a month-old copy of _Life_ by the register. On the cover is some woman he vaguely remembers Cleo complaining about. But the date matches up to the article, and he has a moment. The woman manning the counter— a grandmotherly old thing whose mark would have gotten her killed in Europe— doesn't seem to notice as he skims the contents.  
His eye is drawn to the photos first, noting with satisfaction that all shots were taken in what looked like a suburban living room. He is pleased that his time on the phone with Mrs. Wheatley was not wasted. The article itself is wholly uninformative on her tactical preferences, and yes, only the one game was printed. It is vaguely insulting from a player's perspective, but typical of a national magazine. There at least was an attempt to put together a coherent personal profile. They mention the orphanage and the adoption, and that her first tournament was the Kentucky State Championship. But at this point, even Cleo probably knows more.  
He thinks they were alluding to him in the introduction, but definitely catches their attempt to identify him near the end. "She neither confirms nor denies the rumors regarding her soulmark, and believes the only thing worth noting about her match is whether they play chess." It is an excellent evasion, really.  
Benny is twenty-four, but he remembers his own thoughts about soulmates at that age. Her words are like a mirror. 

Although the technology of the time was insufficient for the automatic comparison that known soulmates would prefer given their immediate knowledge of a death, mark tracings of the dead were able to confirm the deaths to the families of those who had tracings made in life... By 1863, it had become common for volunteers and conscripts to hire artists to trace their mark for their families before leaving.  
Due to its origins outside the realm of criminal justice, soulmark tracking never gained the stigma that fingerprinting has...

15 (24)

She is fifteen years old, and she is again attending the Kentucky State Championship. But this time, _she_ is the one defending the title. And this time, she does not arrive not alone.  
Alma accompanies her to the first two rounds on Friday morning, and the university team joins them after lunch. The twins have again found work at the desk, but they chat while they wait for the other matches to finish. Her games are short, and she feels proud with how much quicker she outwits her opponents after a year's practice.  
Annette has again entered, and this time she gets through to the final rounds of the new Women's Section. They talk about the sudden increase in women entries in Kentucky tournaments during lunch on Saturday. Jolene comes by, and somehow the conversation diverts to law school. She doesn't get it, but Alma takes notes about colleges that give women a fair shot, in case she should choose to attend.  
But for Beth, the highlight of the Championship is not a win, or a trophy, or even a nice check. It is a person. It is Sunday, when Mr. Shaibel shows up in time to watch her beat Beltik again. Afterwards, she doesn't hug him, but she wants to. She knows by now how much he hates crowds and understands the gift in his presence. Instead they exchange their latest correspondence moves in person.  
It is an excellent early birthday present, she decides.

He is twenty-four, and this is his fourth Olympiad. Fifty countries, maybe three hundred players, and _six Russians_. There is no other occasion to study so many high-level players in one setting, and the data he collects from watching others' games is as valuable as what he collects playing his own. He hasn't missed one since his first invitation, and he definitely isn't going to miss this one.  
He plays with the Russian lineup when he doesn't play their games. Borgov. Tal. Petrosian. Keres. Spassky or Shapkin. Botvinnik or Luchenko. _Murderous.  
_The U.S. team this year is as social as can be expected of a group of American chess players, although it lacks the cohesion of an intercollegiate team. Of course not, not when some were competing against each other less than a month ago. (What is two weeks, next to two years?) But there is a certain comradery, even friendship, to be had when pitched against the world, and a shared appreciation of each other's talents that pervades their discussions, and he savors it.  
On the flight to Tel Aviv he sits next to the only other person in the country to have received a Moscow invite, the middle-aged ex-champion who preceded him as the model chess prodigy in the American consciousness. He probably pesters him about his experiences a bit much when the team suspends their debate for dinner. The man is suspiciously busy examining the contents of his tray despite this being an El Al flight and kosher already. But it is that or spend the thirteen-hour flight beginning an article for _Chess Review_ while trying to ignore the airsickness brewing, so he asks away. That is, until the other grandmaster asks him if he has informed his soulmate about his travel plans, and the nearest member of the Canadian team gags on his drink.  
He has to handle the other passengers' inquiries and teammates' ribbing after that, but at least he isn't _bored_.  
Then the lights dim, and they try to rest, and by the time the flight lands all other thoughts are washed away by the games ahead. There isn't _time_ to talk about a new player, no matter how talented, and soulmarks mean nothing on the board.  
Until he is playing through the sixth round, and his arm goes numb again. Afterwards, the team captain questions him about it. He assures him the doctor cleared him to play. The older player looks skeptical, and suggests that if there is nothing wrong with his mark there may be something wrong with his soulmate.  
Benny considers it. But he is twenty-four, and knows this is not a conversation to be had over the phone, and certainly not on international rates. He decides to try to speak to Alma at the U.S. Open. With over $700 dollars on the line, he knows they will be there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rough, and shorter than I anticipated. Ah well. I'm lucky to get it out by my assumed deadline to be honest.
> 
> Also, the American Civil War left some serious scars on the surviving generations and I am running with it. No shame here.
> 
> Much of my sources for the last part are from _Chess Review_ and _Chess Life_. And a biography of Tal, who apparently was turned back at the airport before he got to the 16th Olympiad. Go figure.

**Author's Note:**

> Finally posting this. Consider it another variant checked off the Soulmark AU bingo book this lovely fandom seems to be filling in.


End file.
